Today, I'm on vacation and stupidly bought the cheapest sunblock I could find. Instead of protecting my skin, the sunblock acted as a damn lightning rod for the sun, and I now look like I just spent a few hours on a spit-roast. FML

Yeah, that was a shitty joke. By the way OP, I'm speaking as a horrifically pale girl when I say never ever ever ever go for the cheap sunblock. It only makes it worse. Better to spend more and be protected than spend less and look like a bloody slab of meat.

I have never met a person who does fine with cheap sunblock or I wouldn't have said anything, but judging from OP's story he must be an exception too. Just giving a little tip from a super pale person to another person. Sorry to make a generalization but I assumed OP was the same as I am.

Someone is going to say that it's hard to mix up sunscreen and tanning oil, and let me tell you it's not. It's as easy as buying shampoo instead of conditioner. I've done it before and I might as well have covered myself in butter, rolled myself up in tinfoil and cooked myself like a baked potato because I burnt so bad.

My thoughts exactly. The sunblock and suntan lotion bottles look identical. The bottles for the suntan lotion are pretty misleading and don't usually have "suntan lotion" in big bold letters. It's usually written in some small fancy font in the corner somewhere. Are you sure it wasn't suntan lotion you bought op?

What's the difference between sunblock and lotion or oil? I don't go out much, so I almost never use any of the three, and the bottles don't say becauase they just assume everyone knows. Probably self explanatory in the names, but I want to be sure. I know the block prevents tans and burns.

It could have been sunscreen. I got banana boat sunscreen for cheap for a weekend trip at the beach. Put it on very often and BURNED. I got a second degree burn on my face. The first day we were there my friend didn't put on sunscreen and we were at the beach 6 hours and she didn't burn but got a nice tan. Second day she put on the sunscreen and we were at the beach an hour and she burned.

As a ginger the worse sunblocks are Panama Jack and Banana Boat. The best is Coppertone and store brands that are based on Coppertone as in CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens. Tanning oils should have an SPF rating and should have coconut oil as the natural sunscreen, and they should work if applied properly. However tanning oil with no SPF you may as well wear baby oil.

11, with sunblock, I've noticed that most the time, it does. Cheap sunblock, for me, is just like putting grease on my body. It doesn't protect from the sun at all. More expensive sunblocks tend to do the job, though.

It didn't save my revision... I meant add that it's usually the case where more expensive is better. There are a few really expensive sunblocks that don't help that much, but cheap sunblock usually doesn't help, either. Sorry I was so unclear.

Some people (like meeeeeeeee) can't tell the difference between simply being warmed up by the sun and actually being burned. I often only realize that I am now lobster when someone else is like "Dude you're a lobster now" or when I try to exist the next day.

I understand trying to save money and I'm truly sorry for you, but YDI. Protecting your skin should be at the top of your priorities. I have really light skin, a lot of small moles and a mother with a horrible rant ready about skin cancer (she used to work as a nurse, giving her the opportunity to see all kinds of illnesses), so I learnt that the sun can turn pretty quickly into your enemy.

I completely disagree 13. Op was making protecting their skin a priority hence buying the sunblock. And although in some cases more expensive equals better quality (like leather purses), this usually isn't the case with sunblock, as any other type of medical substance. You can buy the Advil bottle and think it'll work better, but the no name brand ibuprofen will actually work the exact same; this is because the ingredients are the same. Same with nose spray, cough medicine, and yes sunblock. They have the same types of ingredients (including spf) and therefore should've worked sufficiently enough to keep op from burning. Now the cheap bottle may not smell as nice or have as nice a texture due to the added non-medical ingredients, but the sunblock should've protected op from the sun. This is not op's fault and there's no reason why op shouldn't have thought that the cheaper sunblock would work.